The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1887-10-15
SELE-EDUCATION.
A Moral to Young People Who Would Ed
ucate Themselves by Reading.


Horace Greeley is a self-made man
and worships his creator" The cpl
gram may have been unjust to the dis
tinguished journalist, but it exposed
the vicious tendency of so-called self
made" or ''self-educated' men to
plume themselves upon their achieve
ment.h Their vanity is unreasonable.
No man ever became great who did not
make himself, and there never
was an educated man who did not
educate himself every man." says
Gibbon, the historian, "who rises above
the common level receives two educa-
.ions-thc first from his instructors;
the second, the most personal and i'm
portant, from himself"
The singularity of the so-called "self-
educated" man is that he receives no
aid from college and but little or no
help from a school. He educated HIM
self by acquiring knowledge and form
ing the habit Of thinking. In his strug-
gle he was, however, aided by college,
bred men, who wrote the most of the
books he read. In his method of ac-
curing knowledge, the self-made man
is not more singular than the graduate,
when he begins what Gibbon calls his
''second" education. For no two men
ever acquired knowledge by the same
method. 1t is easy to read, yet no two
men, who have made anything of
themselves, ever read the same book in
a similar way. Neander, the church
historian, read a book carefully
through, making notes on the margin.
DR.. johnson on the contrary, used to
dip into book at random. He read
enough to seize the leading idea, and
then threw it aside. Daniel Webster
began with the table of contents and
only read such parts of the text as
would give him new ideas or add to his
stock of knowledge.
1t used to be said that one difference
between English and American gradu-
ates was this: the American had more
general information, when he left col
lcge, than the Englishman, who was a
"Senior Wrangler;" but the English
man had mastered the few authors he
studied and was entitled to be called
ga scholar" whereas the American,
though he knew little of every thing,
had mastered nothing. A man who is
simply curious contents himself with
facts. His method of reading will be
very different from that of the man who
inquiries and is not satisfied unless he
knows the principles which underlie the
facts
A law student. when he begins his
studies, has Blackstone's Commentaries
placed in his hands. 1t is clear expo
sition of the common law of England,
written in style that makes it litera-
ture. 1t has, also, the inertia rare
one in a law book-of being intelligible;
but it is not deep. nor is it free from the
error of stating doubtful principles as
undoubted law.
Now the ordinary student of law is
simply curious to know facts. He asks
"What?' and Blackstone answers his
traordinary student, who was always
"Why?" When he began to study
law, he would have nothing to do with
Blackstone's elegant compilation. He
took the bull by the horns, and grappled
at once with Cooke upon Littleton,"
the dryest, the hardest, and the best
exposition of the common law. Scott
began his reading of Coke by taking to
heart the old lawyers warning: ''And,
Albeit, the reader shall not at any one
day, do what he can, reach to the
meaning of one author, or of our COM
mentaries; yet. let him noway discOur-
age himaelf, but proceed; for on some
other day, in some other place, that
doubt will be cleared"
Every student should write out these
warning words. and place the manu-
script where it shall meet his eye,
every time he yawns over a book hard
to understand. Scott not only read
Coke, but he abridged it; when he had
mastered its principles, he grappled
with the Chancery Reports. He made
himself so well acquainted with them,
by asking "whyP' as well as "what?"
that he could tell the very page in
which each of the cases was to be
found, and state, ofl-hand, the precise
points in which they agreed or differed.
Being too poor to pay the fee of one
hundred guineas for Il years instruc-
ton in special pleading, he copied all
the forms he could lay his hands upon
declaration, complaint the plea, the
replication, etc. and compiled two
large volumes of precedents. John
Scott was graduate and a prizeman
of Oxford; but his second education,
received from himself, made him Lord
Chancellor Eldon.
The moral to young men, and to
Young women. also, is this: He who
would educate himself by reading must
seek fundamental principles. What
ever his method of reading, whether
slow and painful or rapid and pleasant,
his mind must work, and not merely
receive thought. When he has asked
WHAT" and has been answered, he
must follow it up with "Why?" and
not rest until this, also, is answered.